Showing posts with label Alcohol abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alcohol abuse. Show all posts
Monday, October 21, 2019
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Guildhaus does so much good
Blue Island’s Guildhaus helped thousands find sobriety; now it needs your help
Located in an old bottle factory, the Guildhaus in Blue Island is a halfway house for addicts and alcoholics, opened in 1987. A bar, the Maple Tree Inn (right) is next door. | Neil Steinberg/Sun-Times
One of the really great things about being a recovering alcoholic is that it inspires you to help others.
Even if you don’t particularly want to. Even if you’re kinda busy.
Doesn’t matter. You have to. It’s only fair. Because you know that people helped you when you needed it. So even the most self-absorbed, sorry-not-my-table kind of guy — me, for instance — talks to the messed-up drunk who phones out of the blue. Goes to lunch with the stranger who reaches out.
Or, in this case, drives the 99-mile round trip to sit in Kevin Lavin’s office at the Guildhaus in Blue Island to hear his bad news.
OPINION
“Financially, we’re in a very serious position,” said Lavin, executive director of the South Side halfway house. “What happened was, we started the new DUI outpatient center, which was a drain. It hasn’t come to what we thought it would. That was part of it. Part of it was we started falling behind on our taxes. Now we’re upside down.”
Located in an old bottle factory across from the Cal-Sag Channel, the Guildhaus shelters 22 residents. Its addition, Guildhaus II, sleeps 26. Founded 30 years ago by retired Chicago firefighter Jack King, Guildhaus has helped 18,000 alcoholics and — increasingly — drug addicts salvage their lives. If each one dug into his pocket for a few bucks, Guildhaus’ problems would be solved.
Lavin was a commodities trader — you might remember his story from a couple Thanksgivings ago. After getting sober, he quit the world of finance and joined Guildhaus, which operates a residential, 12-step treatment program, requiring counselors and therapists, administrators and assistants. All that costs money. Every year, Guildhaus runs about a $200,000 operating deficit. Initially, he could cover that by hitting up his old pals.
Kevin Lavin, executive director of Guildhaus, a halfway house helping addicts in Blue Island, said the facility now needs the public’s help to keep its doors open. | Neil Steinberg/Sun-Times
“The first year I did it was easy,” Lavin said. “The second year you go back to the same guys, it’s not so easy.”
While I was there, I ate dinner with the residents — chicken, creamed corn, bug juice. Hearty, but nobody stays here for the food.
“For me, it’s the blend — the people, the counselors, the family atmosphere,” said Mike.
“It was tough, but worth every minute of it,” said Fred.
When someone asks for money, you tend to look at them a little more closely. Prudence dictated I call around.
State Rep. Kelly Burke (D-36th) is on the Guildhaus board.
“They provide a great service in helping people get through their addictions,” she said. “They’ve seen their population move from people with alcohol problems to people with opioid problems. The need is acute. To be in the community, close to where a lot of these guys grew up and live, so they still have family support, is really important at a low time in their lives. There are not a lot of places for people to get quality drug rehab and counseling; it’s important to keep centers like this open.”
To protect residents, the Guildhaus is unobtrusive. But that hurts when it comes to fund raising.
“Exactly,” said State Sen. Bill Cunningham (D-18th).
“One of the reasons for its success is the place keeps a low profile. That’s important to people it traditionally serves, who come from law enforcement and other first-responder backgrounds. It was one of the few places where first-responders on the South Side felt comfortable going,” Cunningham said.
“There is a long-established sub-culture among first responders that does not lend itself to participate in recovery programs. It’s seen a a sign of weakness. A lot of cops and firefighters think that seeking help will be held against them. One of the real services that Guildhaus provides is, it’s a trusting environment. I know a lot of constituents who have taken advantage of it,” he added.
“His work out in Blue Island has been magnificent,” said Jim Sexton, mayor of Evergreen Park. “His work is very good, but it is challenging financially. The state and feds aren’t giving anybody anything, so you gotta figure out another way.”
That way is astonishingly easy. Go to the Guildhaus web page. Click the big green “Donate to GoFundMe” bar. When I went Thursday, I saw that they had raised $1,400 from eight people over the past month. A start, but not nearly good enough.
We can do better. I swallowed hard and kicked in $100. Anything you can give helps.
“All these guys that’ve been been through the house,” said Lavin. “If they see this in the paper and they see that we’re in trouble. We need help to keep this institution going. Because we save lives.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
More older women are drinking hard
"It's just wine"
New research finds an increase in binge drinking among older women.
More older American women than ever are drinking — and drinking hard, a new study shows.
Most troubling was the finding that the prevalence of binge drinking among older women is increasing dramatically, far faster than it is among older men, the researchers noted.
The difference was striking: Among men, the average prevalence of binge drinking remained stable from 1997 to 2014, while it increased an average of nearly 4 percent per year among women, the researchers found.
Increased drinking and binge drinking can be a serious health problem for women, said study author Rosalind Breslow, an epidemiologist at the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Women don’t tolerate alcohol as well as men, and they start to have alcohol-related problems at lower drinking levels than men, Breslow explained.
She pointed out that on average, women weigh less than men, and have less water in their bodies than men do. (Alcohol dissolves in water).
“So, after a man and woman of the same weight drink the same amount of alcohol, the woman’s blood alcohol concentration will tend to be higher, putting her at greater risk for harm,” Breslow said.
For the study, Breslow and her colleagues collected data on more than 65,000 men and women aged 60 and older who were current drinkers. Among these, more than 6,500 men and 1,700 women were binge drinkers.
Older adults, in general, are at greater risk of the effects of alcohol than younger adults, Breslow noted. “They’re more sensitive to the effects of alcohol, which can contribute to falls and other injuries, a major problem in older people,” she said.
As the U.S. population ages, the number of men and women 60 and older who drink will likely increase further, bringing with it more alcohol-related problems.
In the study, said Breslow, “we found that between 1997 and 2014, the proportion of older male drinkers in the U.S. population increased about 1 percent per year, and female drinkers increased nearly 2 percent per year.”
It’s not clear why this is happening, Breslow added.
“There is a great deal of speculation that baby boomers drank more when they were young and continue to drink more as a group. There is some limited evidence to support this speculation,” she said.
“We did find that more younger boomers, ages 60 to 64, both men and women, were drinking than people of the same age in past generations,” Breslow added.
Whether drinking is increasing among certain racial or ethnic groups isn’t something the researchers analyzed, she said.
But alcohol can have devastating consequences, particularly for older adults, Breslow said.
“Too much drinking increases your chances of being injured or even killed. Alcohol is a factor, for example, in about 60 percent of fatal burn injuries, drownings and homicides; 50 percent of severe trauma injuries and sexual assaults; and 40 percent of fatal motor vehicle crashes, suicides and fatal falls,” she said.
In addition, heavy drinkers have a greater risk of liver disease, heart disease, sleep disorders, depression, stroke, bleeding from the stomach, sexually transmitted infections from unsafe sex, and several types of cancer, Breslow said. They may also have problems managing diabetes, high blood pressure and other chronic conditions.
“Think before you drink,” she said. Adults over age 65 who are healthy and do not take medications should not have more than three drinks a day or seven drinks in a week, Breslow said.
“Based on your health and how alcohol affects you, you may need to drink less or not at all,” she added.
Another alcohol abuse expert also felt that the rise in binge drinking among older women was the most concerning finding in the study.
“We know that, overall, women are more sensitive to the negative health consequences of alcohol than men,” said Dr. J.C. Garbutt, medical director of the University of North Carolina Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program, in Chapel Hill.
“These consequences include liver disease, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and cognitive impairment — serious problems — and addiction to alcohol is possible as well,” he said.
Garbutt said he couldn’t explain the increase in binge drinking among older women.
“One would have to think there are major cultural factors at work, including the greater acceptability for women to drink, family structural changes, and perhaps greater access. But we really don’t know so it would be premature to speculate,” he said.
“Regardless, this speaks to the need to continue to educate the public about the harms of alcohol, including the increased risk to women and older individuals,” he said.
The report was published March 24 in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
A study published last October also found the gap in drinking between men and women is closing.
Women across the globe are now nearly as likely as men to drink and to engage in excessive drinking, according to researchers with the National Drug and Alcohol Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
Monday, September 22, 2014
Sen. Bill Cunningham - self centered knob.
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| Cunningham's car blocking a handicapped ramp. |
It seems that Bill Cunningham participated in the Evergreen Park July 4th parade and then drove to Ridge Country Club to relax with his peers. The problem arose when he decided to park near the front door instead of a regular spot in the parking lot. Don't you know he is the SENATOR and will not be treated like a regular member. So he parks the car immediately adjacent to the front door blocking a wheelchair ramp. A group of senior citizens who had entered hours earlier via the ramp, was leaving and was told that they had to use the stairs. While attempting to negotiate the stairs at least two of them tumbled to the ground. After that quite a large group assembled to help the remaining senior citizens down the stairs. One of the seniors was so mad he went up to Cunningham's car and hit the left front fender with his cane.
This is an prime example of what Senator Cunningham thinks of his constituents. "The people can be damned". That attitude explains why he votes for all kinds of crap that is contrary to the interest of this neighborhood.
Damn you Senator Cunningham.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Do you need help with alcohol?
IS A.A. FOR YOU?
Only you can decide whether you want to give A.A.a try —
whether you think it can help you.
We who are in A.A. came because we finally gave up trying to control our drinking. We still hated to admit that we could never drink safely. Then we heard from other A.A. members that we were sick. (We thought so for years!) We found out that many people suffered from the same feelings of guilt and loneliness and hopelessness that we did. We found out that we had these feelings because we had the disease of alcoholism.
We decided to try and face up to what alcohol had done to us. Here are some of the questions we tried to answer honestly. If we answered YES to four or more questions, we were in deep trouble with our drinking. See how you do. Remember, there is no disgrace in facing up to the fact that you have a problem.
YesNo
2 - Do you wish people would mind their own business about your drinking-- stop telling you what to do?
In A.A. we do not tell anyone to do anything. We just talk about our own drinking, the trouble we got into, and how we stopped. We will be glad to help you, if you want us to.
YesNo
3 - Have you ever switched from one kind of drink to another in the hope that this would keep you from getting drunk?
We tried all kinds of ways. We made our drinks weak. Or just drank beer. Or we did not drink cocktails. Or only drank on weekends. You name it, we tried it. But if we drank anything with alcohol in it, we usually got drunk eventually.
YesNo
4 - Have you had to have an eye-opener upon awakening during the past year?
Do you need a drink to get started, or to stop shaking? This is a pretty sure sign that you are not drinking "socially."
YesNo
5 - Do you envy people who can drink without getting into trouble?
At one time or another, most of us have wondered why we were not like most people, who really can take it or leave it.
YesNo
6 - Have you had problems connected with drinking during the past year?
Be honest! Doctors say that if you have a problem with alcohol and keep on drinking, it will get worse -- never better. Eventually, you will die, or end up in an institution for the rest of your life. The only hope is to stop drinking.
YesNo
7 - Has your drinking caused trouble at home?
Before we came into A.A., most of us said that it was the people or problems at home that made us drink. We could not see that our drinking just made everything worse. It never solved problems anywhere or anytime.
YesNo
8 - Do you ever try to get "extra" drinks at a party because you do not get enough?
Most of us used to have a "few" before we started out if we thought it was going to be that kind of party. And if drinks were not served fast enough, we would go some place else to get more.
YesNo
9 - Do you tell yourself you can stop drinking any time you want to, even though you keep getting drunk when you don't mean to?
Many of us kidded ourselves into thinking that we drank because we wanted to. After we came into A.A., we found out that once we started to drink, we couldn't stop.
YesNo
10 - Have you missed days of work or school because of drinking?
Many of us admit now that we "called in sick" lots of times when the truth was that we were hung-over or on a drunk.
YesNo
11 - Do you have "blackouts"?
A "blackout" is when we have been drinking hours or days which we cannot remember. When we came to A.A., we found out that this is a pretty sure sign of alcoholic drinking.
YesNo
12 - Have you ever felt that your life would be better if you did not drink?
Many of us started to drink because drinking made life seem better, at least for a while. By the time we got into A.A., we felt trapped. We were drinking to live and living to drink. We were sick and tired of being sick and tired.
YesNo
Did you answer YES four or more times? If so, you are probably in trouble with alcohol. Why do we say this? Because thousands of people in A.A. have said so for many years. They found out the truth about themselves — the hard way. But again, only you can decide whether you think A.A. is for you. Try to keep an open mind on the subject. If the answer is YES, we will be glad to show you how we stopped drinking ourselves. Just call. A.A. does not promise to solve your life's problems. But we can show you how we are learning to live without drinking "one day at a time." We stay away from that "first drink." If there is no first one, there cannot be a tenth one. And when we got rid of alcohol, we found that life became much more manageable.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS© is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.
- The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions.
- A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes.
- Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
Copyright A.A.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
The shame of it all.
Alcohol abuse means having unhealthy or dangerous drinking habits, such as drinking every day or drinking too much at a time. Alcohol abuse can harm your relationships, cause you to miss work, and lead to legal problems such as driving while drunk (intoxicated). When you abuse alcohol, you continue to drink even though you know your drinking is causing problems.
If you continue to abuse alcohol, it can lead to alcohol dependence. Alcohol dependence is also called alcoholism. You are physically or mentally addicted to alcohol. You have a strong need, or craving, to drink. You feel like you must drink just to get by.You might be dependent on alcohol if you have three or more of the following problems in a year:
- You cannot quit drinking or control how much you drink.
- You need to drink more to get the same effect.
- You have withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking. These include feeling sick to your stomach, sweating, shakiness, and anxiety.
- You spend a lot of time drinking and recovering from drinking, or you have given up other activities so you can drink.
- You have tried to quit drinking or to cut back the amount you drink but haven't been able to.
- You continue to drink even though it harms your relationships and causes physical problems.
How much drinking is too much?
Alcohol is part of many people’s lives and may have a place in cultural and family traditions. It can sometimes be hard to know when you begin to drink too much.You are at risk of drinking too much and should talk to your doctor if you are:1
- A woman who has more than 3 drinks at one time or more than 7 drinks a week. A standard drink
is 1 can of beer, 1 glass of wine, or 1 mixed drink.
- A man who has more than 4 drinks at one time or more than 14 drinks a week.
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